


Giving the Devil his Due

by lyricwritesprose



Series: Warlock Dowling's Not Entirely Normal Life [4]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Doesn't require much knowledge of musical theater I hope, Fluff, Gen, Guess The Author, Prompt Fic, Warlock Dowling is interested in precisely zero manly man pursuits, musical theater
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:27:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25965097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyricwritesprose/pseuds/lyricwritesprose
Summary: Warlock downplayed his part in the school play, and told his godparents they probably didn't want to show up.  He's about to find out whether they listened.  Written for the prompt, "a gift," for the Soft Omens Snuggle House Guess the Author contest.
Series: Warlock Dowling's Not Entirely Normal Life [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1461898
Comments: 41
Kudos: 201
Collections: Lyric's Emergency Fluff Collection, SOSH - Guess the Author #4 "A Gift"





	Giving the Devil his Due

A baseball player bumped into Warlock near the dressing room and said, “Whoops, sorry, Satan.”

Warlock rolled his eyes. If people made a joke, lean into it. “It’s  _ the Adversary, _ Destroyer of Kings—”

The other boy was already gone.

Warlock had been worried about taking this part in the school musical. Yes, it was a ton of fun, especially since he was allowed to ham it up as much as he liked. The song “Those Were The Good Old Days,” was a blast, once he had rewritten it to something a little less product-of-its-times-y. But he was also playing a  _ vaudeville-inspired devil, _ and he was worried that it was insulting.

He hadn’t made a big deal out of the musical. In fact, he had made something of an anti-big-deal out of it.  _ The school is putting on  _ Damn Yankees, _ but you probably don’t want to come and see it. It’s really American, you know, and I don’t know that we’re going to be that good, so I’d almost rather nobody show up . . . _

Maybe he was regretting that a little.

Maybe he should branch out and play something other than villains. He would have to, if he wanted to go into musical theater as a profession. (Best not to think about the paternal reaction to  _ that _ one.) For right now, though, he was happy in his niche.

He opened the door to the boy’s dressing room.

“Hey, Satan, someone left you flowers!”

The comment wasn’t unfriendly. It was Gene, who played the young version of Joe, and he and Warlock got along—a good thing, too, since they played opposite each other.

“It’s ‘the Adversary,’” Warlock said cheerfully, “‘Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. They’re over there.”

Warlock looked over to the mirror.

Sitting in front of the mirror was one enormous bouquet of cream-colored irises, and one enormous bouquet of  _ black _ irises. Warlock hadn’t known that irises came in black.

Actually—come to think of it, he still didn’t know whether irises came in black. Warlock felt a smile starting involuntarily.

“There’s a card,” Gene said helpfully, and took the card out of the black irises. He turned it over and read out loud. “To: The Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Prince of this World— _ wait _ a minute. You didn’t make that stuff up?”

“My life would be  _ so _ much simpler if I had,” Warlock said, “and so much more boring.” He took the cards.

The card from the white irises said, “Truly a dastardly plot. Excellently done!” and the card from the black irises said, “If you’ve never talked with someone from Deals, you have  _ no _ idea how funny this is.”

Warlock smiled and put them down beside the flowers.

“No signature,” Gene noted, looking at the card from the white irises. “Who sends a person two  _ gigantic _ bunches of flowers and doesn’t sign their name?”

Warlock shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. I know exactly who they’re from.”

**Author's Note:**

> The musical _Damn Yankees_ is about a middle-aged man making a deal with the Devil to become a much younger, miraculously good baseball player and propel his team to victory against the Yankees. It is as silly as it sounds, and—in my opinion, anyway—pretty good fun, although as Warlock notes, some of it is a bit product-of-its-times-y.
> 
> It's true that Crowley is extra enough to conjure some up, but as it happens, black irises are a thing.


End file.
